1. Technical Field
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a data storage device, and more particularly, to a data storage device sharing a buffer memory with a host.
2. Related Art
Recently, the computing environment has become ubiquitous in which computer systems are used anytime and anywhere. Accordingly, the use of portable electronic devices such as mobile phones, digital cameras, and notebook computers has rapidly increased. In general, such a portable electronic device includes a data storage device using memory devices. The data storage device is used as a main memory device or auxiliary memory device of the portable electronic device.
The data storage device using memory devices has no mechanical driver. Thus, the data storage device has excellent stability and durability, exhibits high information access speed, and has small power consumption. The data storage device having such advantages may include a universal serial bus (USB) memory device, a memory card having various interfaces, a solid state drive (SSD) and the like.
As more and more large files such as music files and video files are reproduced in portable electronic devices, the data storage device is required to have a large storage capacity. The data storage device often includes a plurality of memory devices to increase the storage capacity. In the data storage device with a plurality of memory devices, a high operating speed as well as a large storage capacity are important characteristics of the data storage device.
The data storage device may use a buffer program method to improve the operating speed. In order to use the buffer program method, the data storage device may include a buffer memory. The buffer memory is configured to buffer data transmitted between a host and data storage media (that is, memory devices). Furthermore, the buffer memory may temporarily store metadata required for driving the data storage device.